Rafael Benítez has rebuilt Liverpool to his model since taking over in 2004. Photograph: Barry Coombs/Empics Sport/PA Photos

Don Welsh is a name now forgotten by all but the most diehard Liverpool fans but the club's manager during its 1950s nadir was the last at Anfield to survive in his job after three successive trophyless seasons - a feat emulated by Rafael Benítez this summer. Not that Benítez's position is under threat. After fighting and winning battles against the owners, the chief executive and more than a dozen of the club's long-serving academy staff, he has established an impregnable position.

As he begins his new five-year contract the club's unpopular owners are too cowed by valid criticisms to exert control in any area other than the size of his transfer budget and Rick Parry, whose alleged caution scuppered Benítez's desire to meet Aston Villa's asking price for Gareth Barry last year, has cleared his desk.

The duties of the man the fans dubbed "Coco the Clown" have been temporarily assumed by the new managing director, Christian Purslow, a Spanish-speaking former season-ticket holder and Harvard Business School MBA who has already, it is said, struck up a good relationship with the manager. Good job, too, as Melwood stalwarts such as Steve Heighway, Hugh McAuley and Dave Shannon have found to their cost over the years. Disagree with the boss over policy and there has only ever been one winner. With the coup d'etat complete and the club being rebuilt to his model, no one stands in his path.

And the fans seem to like it that way. Apart from some disquiet about his fondness for deploying the prosaic Lucas - and Liverpool fans' loyalty to the incumbent manager in the past has not stopped Jamie Carragher and Ronnie Whelan becoming Main Stand scapegoats - the Spaniard sails along with the backing of those who go to games and the rabid support of the cyber warriors and massed ranks of phone-in Rafapologists.

To them, of course, the pair of trophies he won on penalties in the first two years of his Anfield spell - the thrilling second-half revival against Milan in the 2005 Champions League final and the comeback from two down against West Ham to win the FA Cup - make him immune to criticism. The odd selection mistake, costly and imprudent purchase, overly cautious approach against demonstrably inferior teams or obdurate adherence to a hole-strewn zonal-marking system scarcely make a dent in their icon. In his defence, every manager has flaws and blindspots and his are no more flagrant than his contemporaries' but his tendency in his public pronouncements to flit between mordancy and monotony has given him a reputation for petulance that is difficult to disregard.

His scorn for Everton - the "small club" slur from two years ago and likening them to Extremadura last season - might be written off as barbs in a long-established city rivalry were it not for the disdain with which they were said. Similarly, his handling of the press conference immediately after the news broke that Tom Hicks and George Gillett had sounded out Jürgen Klinsmann as a possible replacement in 2007, was an object lesson in churlishness. Having been upbraided by the owners for his outspokenness about a lack of funds to invest in players, he responded to every single question with: "As always I am focused on training and coaching my team." Again, it could have been funny had it not been delivered with the curled-lip and deliberately heavy-handed sourness of a schoolkid who wants everyone to know they are making a point.

His spat last season with Sir Alex Ferguson was excusable in that it came after he was provoked by the usual post-Christmas mind-games charade of the Manchester United manager. Holed up at home with kidney stones, Benítez seems to have collated a dossier of United's transgressions and he ran through their catalogue of referee-intimidation with barely concealed ire. To some his rising to United's bait played directly into Ferguson's hands but that depends on whether you believe that old claim that Ferguson's mind games are effective. What is sure, though, is that it gave the United manager the ammunition to portray Benítez as unhinged and his quip that he "would need to read more of Freud" before he could understand his rival's thrust was a sharp rejoinder that left the Spaniard looking small when Liverpool failed to hang on at the top of the table.

The title was theirs for the taking. All the spoils from four league games against Manchester United and Chelsea were won and draws home and away against Arsenal meant they comfortably topped the big-four table. But the old problems of a team set-up for Champions League football surfaced in seven home draws when an instinctive dependence on counter-attacking was stymied by a lack of adventure from the home side and the visitors. In the spring the goals came by the bucketload as his perfected and cherished 4-2-3-1 system bore fruit but by then it was too late.

Keeping his key midfielders out of the clutches of Spanish predators has been Benítez's key priority this summer but he has also spared the time to lambast Barry's greed for choosing Manchester City over Liverpool. He can't help himself. Ask him a question and if there's a point to be scored he'll usually oblige. It has served him well during his internal battles. He has got the club in one hand and the fans eating out of the other, but now it is time to deliver.